The Development of Democratic Attitudes and Civic Virtues in a Deliberative Mini-Public

Abstract

This chapter studies the impacts of involving politicians in a deliberative mini-public (DMP) on participants’ democratic attitudes and civic virtues. DMPs are democratic innovations aimed at enhancing reflection and will formation in democratic decision-making. In the Turku deliberates mini-public, city residents and politicians were invited to deliberate on the topic of transportation policies in the city centre. Half of the participants were appointed to small groups that consisted only of citizens (Citizens only groups), whereas the other half deliberated in groups that included two members of the city council (Mixed groups). The statistical analysis of pre-and post-deliberation survey responses shows that citizen participants developed more positive attitudes towards local representative democracy, deliberative democracy, and user democracy. A similar increase was observed in external political efficacy. Internal political efficacy increased when the item was formulated to concern local democracy. Importantly, none of the differences between Citizens only and Mixed groups were statistically significant after deliberations. These findings suggest that deliberation can positively affect the development of political efficacy and that including politicians in mini-public deliberations does not negatively affect the development of civic virtues.